The schoolyard is quiet. The children's voices have melted and they now flow, golden, on the silken strips hanging on the Wishing Tree. I slowly pull a hope from the bundle and feel my hands caressing the heads of
play-crazed boys and braiding the tails of girls in red, billowing dresses. May I live long and prosper, May I find my true love, May my parents be healthy say all, in all voices, as at the beginning of the world. Suddenly, the open gate slams the wind, shaking the first cherry blossoms.
(Translated by Andreea Tobă / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)Real Fiction is a collective project started in 2013 by Florin Piersic Jr. The concept of Real Fiction continued to exist as a Facebook group, after a volume of stories was published at Humanitas Publishing House. (In December 2021, the group has 7.750 members.) The authors write ultra-short stories, with the texts limited to 500 characters (in Romanian, so the length of the English translation might be a little different) - a flash-fiction exercise on a topic that changes every few days. The group's coordinators are Florin Piersic Jr., Gabriel Molnar, Răzvan Penescu, and Luchian Abel. (Drawing by Adrian T. Roman)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale. 
